The report presents and discusses the Norwegian Mental Health field in three parts: The first part offers a diachronic overview over major developments in the field. The next part describes the structure, the prevailing knowledge and important actors, and the third part discusses some aspects of mental health policy developments that seem important for the relationship between knowledge and politics in the mental health field in... Read more ...

The report analyses “Restructuring of mental health service provision” with a main focus on the formation and implementation of the Mental Health Action Plan 1998 - 2008. “Restructuring of mental health services” in our context relates to the formal organization designs that are set up (evolved/decided) at three levels of government: the national, specialist services and municipal services. Formal restructuring involves processes that intend to reorganize existing service units and design new... Read more ...

The relationship between Norway and WHO with respect to mental health is embedded in a long tradition of Norwegian support of the organization. Generally, the indication is that Norway is giving WHO high priority, reflected in offering it extensive financial support and expertise. However, in mental health this relationship seems far more complex and ambiguous than would be expected on the basis of this tradition, for cultural and knowledge-related as well as structural issues. One might... Read more ...

The way Europe relates to bureaucracy and post-bureaucracy is complex, because Europe itself is diverse and comprises different spaces where tensions between bureaucracy and postbureaucracy play out in various ways. This new context challenges both research and policymaking, requiring much greater reflection on the nature of knowledge and its mobilization in policy. These problems were the central concern of the European project KNOWandPOL.